Sakana no Ko
½*/****
starring Hayato Isomura, Kaho, Non, Yuya Yagira
written by Shirô Maeda, Shûichi Okita, Sakana-Kun
directed by Shûichi Okita
STELLAR: A MAGICAL RIDE
**/****
starring Heo Sung-tae, Lee Kyu-hyung, Son Ho-jun
written by Bae Se-yeong
directed by Kwon Soo-kyung
by Walter Chaw Sakana-kun lands somewhere between a Temple Grandin for fish and, oh, let’s say a Bill Nye the Science Guy for, uh, fish. A Japanese television/YouTube personality, an illustrator (of fish), an honorary professor of fish and a national ichthyologist who is sometimes asked to testify at Japan’s House of Councilors committee sessions about the importance of assuming a piscine point of view in matters of environmental importance, Sakana-kun–whose name means “Mr. Fish,” leading me to suspect it’s maybe not his real name–is a cultural curiosity who trafficks in Japan’s peculiar penchant for extreme, aggressive, borderline-hostile slapstick adorable. I have no doubt he’s well-intentioned and useful in a Crocodile Hunter sort of way, an ambassador for the wild kingdom who, if The Fish Tale, a film based loosely on his autobiography, is to be believed, has turned his profound neurodivergence into a profession. (Join the club, Sakana-kun, amiright?) I do wonder about a couple of things in regards to The Fish Tale, though: first, the way neurodivergence is made into a fairytale Forrest Gump-ian superpower that deflects aggressions micro- or otherwise; second, how the picture casts a woman, model/singer Non, as Sakana-kun (named Mibou in the film), which feels like an attempt to further exoticize our hero by making his gender itself a challenge to the normals. I will say that as a member of a minority in the United States with its own set of specific challenges, one thing I understand to be universal amongst minorities is the desire to be considered neither exceptional nor deficient: the Goldilocks mean of not superhuman, not inhuman, just merely human.
But that’s not the kind of movie The Fish Tale is, i.e., the socially conscious and issue-sober kind. On the contrary, The Fish Tale is a broad, physical-gag comedy complete with goofy sound effects and a hyper-energetic, whimsical score. I know a lot of people like stuff like this, but boy am I not one of them, especially when it lands adjacent to topics that deserve a treatment that isn’t hyperactive at least, irritating at best. I’m talking about the challenges for folks on the autism spectrum, but could as easily be talking about stuff like how the “bad” guys in the film are for the most part correct about being concerned their little girl is hanging out with an apparent pedophile. That little girl is Mibou (Non as a teen and adult) who is obsessively fixated on all non-mammalian aquatic life. I don’t say “fish,” because the first object of interest is an octopus, a giant example of which she “captures” one day with the intent of keeping it as a pet, only to have her pragmatic dad (Hiroki Miyake) murder it on the beach to roast it by campfire. Mibou eats it, too, which… Look, she loves seafood, eats a ton of it in a way not unlike Madison the mermaid in Splash, I guess. I’m really trying here. She is unfailingly upbeat in spreading her gospel of fish being people, too, and also delicious, in ways so effective she manages to quell a gang war with her commando-prepared squid. There’s a scene in the second half of the film where she’s the third wheel on a date between her buddy Hiyo (Yuya Yagira) and his pretty girlfriend who laughs at Mibou’s aspirations, considering them “childish.” Off-screen, Socho stands up for Mibou, who doesn’t notice the offense nor dig too deeply when Socho tells her to never mind. The gesture is noble, yes, but it’s not set up with any stakes beforehand or paid off with any consequences after. The Fish Tale isn’t that kind of movie, either.
The Fish Tale needed some guardrails, structure, supervision–ironically, the very things it suggests would have stifled Mibou’s passions and enthusiasm. When my kids were small, my wife and I had a policy of not inflicting them on others. We’re the only ones, after all, required to find their quirks adorable. We also didn’t let them, as Mibou’s overly indulgent mother does Mibou, hang out at the neighbourhood weirdo’s house. In the film, said fish-loving weirdo–played by Sakana-kun in one of the most unfortunate and confusing star cameos ever, like if Mr. Rogers appeared as himself in a movie but as a weird pedo–gives Mibou his signature hat after he’s been, we presume, handed a restraining order. The problem is The Fish Tale makes the entire episode (the grooming, the bad parenting) into just another whimsical step along a blessed path, which strikes one as not just insufferable but actually irresponsible. It’s terrible, this film, all the way through to a final scene that plays out like the Pied Piper of Hamelin myth except with fish, as Mibou leads a gaggle of urchins right onto and off a pier into the open ocean, where, about to drown, Mibou instead (or is that in addition to?) notices an interesting fish and strikes off in pursuit of it. At no point did I think the movie had the first idea what it means to say while it’s saying other things: by casting a woman as Mibou, for instance, a potential female love interest (Momo (Kaho Indo)) who moves in with her and gazes at her longingly though her interest is never reciprocated is…profoundly frustrating. Why is Mibou not interested? Is she interested but unable to express it in any way other than how they’re expressing it? Which is by eventually buying Momo’s kid a bunch of art supplies she can’t afford? But when the kid doesn’t get the present, she uses it herself to start a career as an illustrator–so has she sublimated her grief over this missed opportunity for romantic connection into visual art? I don’t need answers because I don’t really care, yet the whole of it is so defiantly against emotional/social engagement that it has the effect of a person you don’t know dressed in an obnoxious costume jumping out at you from a bush and demanding you be delighted.
Less obnoxious but also more aggravating than funny (understanding that of the things that are subjective and difficult to translate, comedy is at the top of the list) is South Korea’s Stellar: A Magical Ride. Here, medium-time hood and mad-at-dad Yeong-bae (Son Ho-jun) makes his living stealing cars he fences for his gangster bosses. His latest exploit involves a $300,000 Lambo he hands over to his partner (Lee Kyoo-hyung), who promptly disappears with it in his own plot to sell it on the side and thus win back his wife and impress his kids. Meanwhile, Yeong-bae’s estranged dad dies, leaving him a pile of debt and the decrepit Hyundai Stellar he used his whole disappointing life as a taxicab. Dad wasn’t there for Yeong-bae, you see, because he was working triple shifts to ensure all his kid’s dreams came true. The film is eventually and essentially about Yeong-bae growing up and learning how to forgive his father while becoming a functional enough adult to be ready for fatherhood himself. That’s it. The only twist is that the Stellar is either a Herbie/Christine or haunted by the ghost of his dad (it’s hard to tell, given the crushing weight of the dewy flashback sequences), a car that occasionally communicates, Bumblebee-like, through the songs it plays on its tape deck, handles like a racecar when necessary, and petulantly refuses to start if there’s a lesson to be taught. Be prepared for lots of bullshit like that, a few surprisingly violent fight sequences Stellar‘s oppressively jaunty score (a jangle of trumpets and other oompah horns) reassures are all in good fun, and a pair of hilariously crotchety senior citizens who are just adorable. Does it hang together as a metaphor for a healthy Oedipal split, a successful filial launch, and an acceptance of a domestic future? Sure. And it gets there fueled by one-half Benny Hill gags and one-half mawkish melodrama, alternating the two so repetitively that the film starts to feel like a cute short trapped in the body of a feature. Anyway, no arguing with Son Ho-jun’s charm and energy. He saves the picture the extent it’s salvageable.
